Conceptions of Leadership

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Conceptions of Leadership

• ICSEI, 2009
• Vancouver
• Professor Alma Harris

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How do we secure and sustain school and system
transformation?
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Distributed leadership(Harris 2008)

• Leadership practice shared and extended within
  and between and outside organisations

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Conceptions of Leadership

• Does the current emphasis on distributed
  leadership balance an unhealthy focus on the
  heroic leader
• or does it just blur responsibility and produce
  a conceptual and practical muddle?

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Conceptual Confusion (Harris, 2007)
Theoretical/ Analytical
Normative/ Applied

SI Learning
Descriptive/ Democratic

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Conceptions of Leadership

• What evidence is there that distributed
  leadership makes a difference to organisational
  outcomes and individual outcomes?

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Seven Strong Claims about Successful School
Leadership(Leithwood, Day, Sammons, Harris and
Hopkins, 2006)

• School leadership has a greater influence on
  learning when it is widely distributed
• Some patterns of leadership distribution are much
  more effective at raising achievement than others

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Sources of Evidence(Harris, 2008)

• Organisational Development and School Improvement
  Literature
• Teacher Leadership Literature
• Recent Studies of School Leadership

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Recent Studies

• Harris and Muijs, (2004)
• Camburn (2008)
• Leithwood and Mascall (2008)
• Hallinger and Heck, (2008/9)
• Day et al 2009
• Louis et al 2009

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Distributed Leadership and Student Learning

• Analysis of data collected from teachers and
  students in 191 elementary schools over a period
  of four years suggests that distributed
  leadership impacts positively upon student
  achievement.
• (Hallinger and Heck, 2009)

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Wrong Question

• The question to ask is not
• Does distributed leadership make a difference to
  student learning?
• BUT
• How and in what form can we maximise the impact
  of DL on learning?

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Conceptions of Leadership

• How can we best utilise the evidence we have?

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DL can assist us in asking

• Are we maximising leadership capacity? Are we
  actively developing lateral and vertical
  leadership?
• Are leaders in the right places to positively
  influence instruction?
• Are we distributing rather than delegating?
• Are we realigning and restructuring leadership
  activity when necessary?
• Are we abandoning leadership practices that are
  hindering organisational growth and change?

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Why? High Impact Leadership
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 http//www.almaharris.co.uk